Creamy Cauliflower and Kale Soup

My love affair with the vitamix continues.   This morning I made another batch of almond milk (and have more yummy crackers in the dehydrator), and for lunch I made a quick soup.  I love that I can make a hot creamy soup so quickly.  I love soup.  So today I raided the fridge to see what produce needed to be used.  We had some Cauliflower leftover from our farm share, half a red onion, and some kale that all needed to be finished up. So this is what I came up with...

  

Ingredients:

1 head of Cauliflower

1 bunch of Kale

1/2 large Red Onion

1 cup of vegetable broth

1/2 cup raw cashews

1/4 nutritional yeast

thyme, oregano, sage, and salt to taste

 

Chop and lightly steam the veggies (if you aren't using a vitamix I'd let them go longer- until they were very soft) 

 

While the veggies were steaming I prepared a base for the soup- 1 cup of veggie broth, blended with the cashews, herbs, and nutritional yeast

 

Throw in your steamed veggies and blend on high for 4-5 minutes until you see steam in the lid. 

 

Not quite munchkin approved, but he was completely distracted by how awesome the salt shaker is for all of lunch.   Micah and I, however, thought it was quite tasty.

Vegan Shepard's Pie

 

It has been a long day.  The munchkin hasn't been sleeping past 6:30 since the end of daylight savings time.  I haven't had a quiet morning to myself in a week! So I was up early entertaining him while we made breakfast.

After a big pancake breakfast, and a house logistics meeting, we spent the rest of the day cleaning and organizing.  We have a ton of books.  Four adults who love books, one of whom was an English grad student accumulate a lot of stuff.   In my child-proofing paranoia, I've started to get kind of nervous about our towering overstuffed bookshelves so I asked my family to clear them out, give some books away, sell some, archive some, and only leave out a small fraction of what had been there.  It is a major project, but we are making really great progress. 

After all that hard work we needed a really hearty dinner... so I made us a nice comforting Shepard's pie.  Lentils instead of meat, frozen corn, mashed potatoes, sprinkled with a little nutritional yeast. 

 

comfort food- nom nom nom

 

munchkin approved. 

Finally home...

after a long day.

My grandmother is in the hospital, so for the second time this week I packed up the munchkin and drove about 2 hours to Rhode Island to visit. Michy went out with me on Monday and today I went out with just the munchkin after I was done in court for the day.  In addition to seeing my grandmother, my brother flew out from California to visit so it was a chance to see him and let the munchkin get some time with his uncle, who he hasn't seen since he was about 6 weeks old. It made for a long day, but it was great to get some time with my family.  

But of course the day would not have been complete without playing with my Vitamix some more! When I woke up this morning, I made almond milk and then took the almond pulp to make almond crackers in my dehydrator. They were in there all day, and when I got home about a half hour ago they had become delicious crunchy crackers- and since I used the dehydrator they still have all the healthy benefits of raw almond.  I followed the almond milk up with some kale, spinach, carrot, celery, and apple juice... sounds like it would taste like grass- but it was surprisingly tasty.

 

Almond soaking overnight

 

2 cups of almonds, 4 cups of water

 

strained through the nutbag that came with the Vitamix

 

almond pulp

 

Delicious almond milk

 

kale, spinach, carrot, celery, and apple juice

 

playing at Nana's house

 

blocks with his uncle

 

when we got home the crackers were done

 

nom nom nom 

My New Toy- Vitamix Turboblend VS

 

Michy and I bought a Vitamix as our holiday present to each other.   I have been lusting after this machine for a long time and last week the coop where Michy works offered them as a special item, which was just enough of a push to convince me to make the commitment. We got an awesome blender, get her employee discount, and supported the co-op.  Wins all around.

Michy brought it home yesterday, and I was so excited to get started... but didn't have a chance until this morning.   I've used it four times today.  I can tell this is going to become a staple of my cooking.

One of the main reasons I wanted a vitamix was to make smoothies.  I love to have smoothies for breakfast, and I kept killing our immersion blenders... they just weren't holding up to the daily abuse.  I also wanted to be able to get a smoother consistency with veggies and be able to include more veggies in my morning drinks.

My first experiment was more of a juice than a smoothie but still yummy and gave me a good idea of how to work the machine.

 

1 apple, 2 carrots, 1 beet- chopped

 

1 cup of water, the fruits and veggies, followed by about a cup of ice. I also threw in a tablespoon of Udi's DHA Oil blend

 

It took less than a minute to reach the right consistency

 

The munchkin and I enjoyed glasses of this all day long.

 

clean-up was super easy.  rinse, add water and a couple drops a dish-soap and run for a minute. 

The next thing I tried was making pancake batter.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures while I did this, so you will just have to trust me that it worked great and tasted wonderful.  I had a great recipe for oat flour pancakes from Renee Hastings, who has been doing nutrition counseling for a program I have been involved in at Heartsong Yoga.  Basically it involves grinding oats in your food processor to make a flour to use for vegan/ gluten free pancakes.  The vitamix easily ground up the oats to a great flour consistency.  Oats are so much cheaper than some of the gluten free flours out there- so I have a feeling I'm going to be making oat flour alot. 

One of the coolest things I had heard about the Vitamix was that it would actually make hot soup- right in the blender.  I decided I had to try that.  So I combined a cup of water, a half cup of raw cashews, 4 tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic and some spices to make:

 

Delicious creamy tomato soup!

 

Munchkin approved (and notice he is still enjoying his apple carrot beet juice!)

My final experiment of the night (which I am enjoying as I type) was a couple squares of 100% cacao baking chocolate, coconut milk, vanilla, and stevia for a frothy hot chocolate. 

Right now I've got some raw almonds soaking on the counter that will turn into fresh almond milk first thing in the morning. 

I also picked Michy up from work today and got a ton of produce so we can experiment with some green smoothies.   I am already in love with this machine.  I can't wait to see what else we can come up with.

An afternoon of cooking

This evening we are heading out to a potluck.  Potlucks can be a challenge with our various dietary restriction and we often end up not eating much (and then subsequently overindulging by the time we get home or find a restaurant on the drive home!) So I try to make sure I bring/make something that we can all enjoy as an entree so we end up satisfied. 

Today I made:

 

Vegan and Gluten-Free "mac and cheese"

 

Quinoa with Kale and Butternut Squash

 

Vegan Gluten Free Apple Crisp

yum!




Very Veggie Marinara

First- big news! The munckin has gone from a high chair to a booster seat! We picked up a cheap one the other day to give it a try.  He's been getting more and more reluctant to sit in his high chair.  I figured he probably wanted to be at the table with everyone else instead of separated.  He seems so much happier to be in the action.  I still have the high chair out for times when I want to give him a snack while I'm make dinner, but for meals I think he is going to transition full time to the booster.  I can't believe how big he is getting.

 

First meal in his big boy chair!

In this week's farmshare we had a bunch of beautiful heirloom tomatoes.  I knew I needed to do something with them quickly so that they didn't go to waste.  So it was time to make marinara.  yum.  Making pasta sauce is one of my favorite, albeit time and labor intensive, cooking tasks.  There is really nothing like homemade sauce, jars just can't compare.  I put a ton of veggies in my sauce, whatever is on hand, which mellows the acidity of the tomatoes and gives the sauce a really complex flavor. Plus it is a great way to hide some of the veggies the munchkin might not normally eat and get him even more nutrients. (though to be fair this kiddo is a great eater and hardly ever gives me a hard time about veggies *knocks on wood*

Like with pesto, I don't really follow a set recipe.

Ingredients:

10 or so tomatoes (in the winter two cans of diced tomatoes is a good substitute for fresh)

1 large onion

5-6 cloves of garlic

An assortment of veggies- I always have at least carrots and celery- altogether about 4-5 cups of chopped veggies

1/4 cup olive olive

Herbs and spices to taste-  I used salt, oregano, thyme, parsley,  and basil.  When I know Ian wont eat it, I throw in a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

1/2-1 cup of red wine

 

Here are the veggies ready to go. 

 

1. Get some water boiling 

 

2. Prepare an ice bath

 

3. Once the water is at a rolling boil, take your tomatoes, remove the stems and drop a few in at a time.  Once the skin starts to wrinkle (about 1 minute)...

 

Pull them out and drop them in the ice bath.  

 

4. Peel the tomatoes and squeeze out the seeds.  The hot water and ice bath makes the skin practically fall off.  Ian tells me that running them over the fire on a gas stove also works.  I've never tried that. 

 

Peeled and seeded tomatoes. Notice the baby monitor- the munchkin was actually napping in bed. sweet!

 

5. Chop your veggies and saute with the olive oil.  In here I have onion, garlic, carrots, celery, a bell pepper, a cucumber, a summer squash, some broccoli, and 3 beets. The beets give a great color and sweetness to the sauce.  All these veggies came from our farmshare. Have I mentioned how much I love having a farmshare? I <3 Red Fire Farm

 

6. While your veggies soften blend up your tomatoes

 

7. When the veggies are a little soft you can add the tomato puree... then add your herbs, bring everything to a boil, then set it to a simmer.

8. Simmer the tomatoes until all the veggies are soft, about 20 minutes.

 

9.  Throw it all back in the blender and puree.  You will probably have to do this in batches or use an immersion blender.

 

10.  Add your wine.  

11. Simmer, simmer, simmer, simmer.  The longer you simmer the richer the sauce becomes.  I let this batch go about 3 hours.

 

The munchkin playing an awesome pots and pans drum solo while I cooked

This delicious looking eggplant

 

became this even more delicious dairy and gluten free eggplant parm.

 

definitely munchkin approved.

Enjoy!

 

Pesto!

This week in our farm share we got over a pound of basil.  A pound of basil goes a long way, so I knew I had to do something with it quickly so it didn't go to waste.  The obvious choice was pesto. I love pesto, it tastes like summer.

I don't really have a pesto recipe.  I always kind of wing it, but it always comes out tasty. 

So here are my guidelines for a tasty vegan pesto:

Ingredients: Amounts are appoximate, I do this by sight/ taste- play with it until it looks and tastes right to you!

Fresh basil- washed and larger stems and flowers removed.  About 3 cups
A nut- pine nuts are traditional, but I don't like them so I use walnuts instead About 1 cup
Garlic- 3-4 cloves
A good quality Extra virgin olive oil- I drizzle this in last until the pesto has a nice texture, about a quarter cup.
Nutritional yeast- about a 1/4 cup
An acidic liquid- lemon juice works, today I did sweet cider vinegar- about a tablespoon
Salt- about 2 teaspoons- more than you think you'll need
I don't use pepper because Ian is allergic, but it would work nicely

 

Throw everything into your food processor but only about half the olive oil you think you will use, pulse a few moments and give it a taste.  The nutritional yeast, acid, and salt are key here because they replace the tangy, salty Parmesan.  Here is where I play with the ingredient proportions until it tastes right.  I always end up adding more salt than I think I need.  Then start blending, adding olive oil until you achieve a smooth, creamy consistency.  

 

NomNomNom. The munchkin was eating it with a spoon as I got it into jars. 

 

We had it with brown rice pasta.

 

Munchkin approved!